


Oxygen Thief

by Desseruh



Category: Pocket Monsters | Pokemon - All Media Types, Pocket Monsters: Sword & Shield | Pokemon Sword & Shield Versions
Genre: Apologies, Bede POV, Bede cannot stand physical contact, Bede is an Oxygen Thief, Camping, Dark, F/M, Gloria is Sensitive, Haphephobia, Help, Lots and Lots of Struggles, Mental Health Issues, Mental Instability, New area, Redemption, Sensory Deprivation, Slow Burn, Touch-Starved, bederia, do not touch, expedition - Freeform, painful
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-14
Updated: 2020-11-11
Packaged: 2021-03-08 22:02:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,934
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27003988
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Desseruh/pseuds/Desseruh
Summary: He wanted her to feel as badly as he did when she ruined everything for him.
Relationships: Beet | Bede & Yuuri | Gloria, Beet | Bede/Yuuri | Gloria
Comments: 4
Kudos: 38





	1. Time Makes the Heart Grow Sickly

The first time Gloria visited him was shortly after the Galar Championship. She popped up in the town; covered in bioluminescent spores and sporting that awful green beret of hers. 

Her tan skin peppered heavily with freckles and her short brown hair tousled in a way that Bede found impish. She was grinning, the apples of her cheeks bisected pleasantly with shallow dimples. 

A twelve-year-old Champion. And he, a twelve-year-old Gym Leader. 

But Bede wasn’t impressed. No. 

She was too _fucking_ happy. Too smiley. As if she hadn’t just _ruined him for all he was worth._

He had hoped that she was here to see the Old Hag and leave. Disappear back into the wild area and not come back for a bit...go camping or whatever all-to-smiley pre-teens did with their time. Maybe she’d go to her _mother_ and her _father_ and do something with them. 

But, when she saw her, she got even brighter. Bioluminescent, glowing in her own way that flared his adrenaline. A fight or flight response that made him coil up, prepared to spring into action. 

But that would make him cowardly. And she was approaching far too quickly. 

A predator... She was a predator and she would only glean pleasure from hunting him down. Gleeful as she chased him through the streets in those horribly clunky brown boots. Then she would ask him questions, try to niggle her way past his natural defenses to sink her teeth into his soft skin. 

“Bede!” She was on him now. Standing at his outdoor table where he _had_ been drinking some awful ginseng tea in which some _dunderheaded fool_ had put oran berries in. It was almost as bitter as him. A flavor only sharpened when his name passed so cleanly from between Gloria’s teeth. Like a song, his syllables stretched as warbled. 

“Heya! Sorry, It took so long for me to visit you!” Her accent, softly Scottish and tittering. Her breath smelled of toothpaste. She was too close. Too. Close. 

Bede leaned away from her, his mouth coming to rest under the lip of his pink parka. The same color as her dress, he noticed. 

He’d need to get another shade…

“I wanted to properly thank you for such a match at the Wyndon Stadium! Man alive, your Haterene really showed Dominik what for!”

Dominik? 

…

Oh. Her _Cinderace._ That little bastard with the feet. The torch that Gloria had used to burn him as that the proverbial stake. He hated that thing; its smiley demeanor and bubbly behavior. 

He hated her too. 

He could say that with a purpose. Strongly, within his mind. She’d taken from him as the world had taken from him. Surely, somewhere in his head told him that it was not all _her_ fault. Rose.. Chairman Rose. 

Something in him snapped and he stood abruptly, watching as Gloria stepped back. Still smiling. Still so _fucking bright._

“Why would you want to visit me?” Bede’s voice, striking and pompous in his ears. A mimicked British that stung the back of his throat. 

“‘Cause that’s what friends do, silly!” 

No. His lips curled unpleasantly and a look of disgust swam in his face. 

He watched, happily, as her glowing smile broke and her brows pinched together. A hurt look crawling across her face. Good. Thank Arceus. 

And for a second, he was no longer staring at the Galar Champion, but a _little girl._ It made him a little boy, he supposed, but his scars and his tragedies had made him so much older. He felt ancient compared to Gloria. Ancient and worn, like he’d been stretched to thin. 

Didn’t she understand that he didn’t need friends? He didn’t _want_ friends!?

“What’s wrong?” It was soft. As meek as a Clefable. She had withdrawn from him a step and he could see the way her fingers knotted in her dress. 

“We aren’t friends.” He pointed out, grimly as he stared at her under white eyelashes. “I don’t _want to be friends._ I don’t want you anywhere around me.”

Bede was brisk. His words were sharp. He could see the muddled emotions in her eyes, the slim speckle of pain dance in her pupils. _Good._ He wanted her to hurt. 

Feel his pain. Feel the rejection. 

Gloria didn’t run away, but he watched her body turn ridged. Her face pinched in an ugly way, her mouth opening before snapping shut again. Her hands clamped over her heart in a way Bede was familiar with, lightyears away from the creature he was now. A slim memory of the Orphanage doors as they closed with him on the inside, and his parents on the outside. 

“Go away, _Champion._ ”

.

…

.

It was years before Bede saw her again. Three, to be exact. 

They had both slipped into their teens with the graciousness of puberty. Meaning they both were roughly between adult and child: like a cruel slap together of limbs and length.

A fifteen-year-old Champion. And he, a fifteen-year-old Gym Leader. 

Bede, himself, had gotten lankier and severely taller. Living in Ballonlea had only been good for him as the light never really punctured the heavy coverage. No more sun-blisters, not more burns. His albinism was no longer a commander of what he dressed in or what times of day he went outside. 

Gloria had only gotten tanner. Her skin warm like dark honey and those freckles still dancing over the slim curve of her nose. Hair still chin length and her bangs braided to the side. 

Still pigeon-toed, still all smiles. Had he even affected her? 

No. No, no he hadn’t. 

Was that so much to ask? To have her feel something other than joy and accomplishment? To have her _cry._

…

She was still wearing that stupid _fucking_ beret. Green and faded. It clashed with that pink... No. She wasn’t wearing pink today… instead, a purple dress clung to her slowly-filling-out body. It was midnight purple; rich and hard. It matched her skin lovely and it sloped around her hips, up the extension of adipose across her belly, and ended hard against her mosquito-bite breasts.

It was so...modest. But his eyes traced everything he wasn’t supposed to trace. Even the knocked-knees of her once-boyish legs left a slickness in his mouth. 

But the feelings, all teen-age lusties, were clamped down and destroyed. She was here, looking like that in _his_ town. 

Bede cursed her under his breath as quickly shut the blinds to his apartment, glad to not have to see her swinging hips and those dimples. 

Cursed the bioluminescence that made her just… soul-suckingly ethereal. 

Subconsciously he wondered if she still was an ugly crier. 

.

…

.

It was another year. Well, a year _and then some_. He was just passing his seventeenth birthday, a crude circle on Opal’s firefighter calendar in the back office of the theatre. 

In a couple of months, Gloria’s circle would be the center of the calendar. 

A sixteen-year-old Champion. And he, a seventeen-year-old Gym Leader. And actor. 

Yes, Bede was onstage when he saw her in the intermission, sitting primly in the crowd, her face done up with soft make-up. Opal was next to her, carefully watching. Waiting. 

Fine. there were two more acts left- the real showstoppers. Where he, Bede, would play the demon that would carefully seduce the girl. His beautifully crafted outfit coming away in ribbons soon, his pale, pale flesh would glimmer as fake blood doused it. 

A sexual, sensual play in which he played the _winner_ and _the bad guy._

The hero would die and he would survive. 

Not only survive, but he would desecrate the corpse of his lover while he was at it.

So, he fell into that role as act two began. HIs slow, sweltering voice- now just _his voice_ instead of the mimicked British accent he’d used to impress Rose. Now it was a rough German. Cruel, sharp, and daunting.

He was to be feared and respected. 

The light bounced off his skin, iridescent. Translucent. His muscles casting curves of light to bend around him He _was_ the demon. And the woman on stage was not his prey, but the _Galar Champion_ , whose dark chocolate eyes still held a sprig of sadness. 

She was beautiful now. Not slim and not tall like he was, but a nice mix of stocky and athletic. Her breasts were still small, she had never gotten rid of that chub around her middle, and her hips were _lovely_ and they drifted into a set of pigeon-toed legs that now held a feminine curve to them that caught his wandering eye. 

Bede, despite those perverted glimpses, had _dazzled_ the crowd. Angular body, broad chest. A dancer’s body. Symmetrical and strong, curving in a snake dance around the prey on stage and those in the crowd. 

Devilish. Beautiful. A god amongst men. 

The actress accompanied him onstage was wrought with blushes. So close he could see the way her eyes followed his muscles. The anger when his body moved _just so_ he wouldn’t accidentally touch her. 

That...That was still something he couldn’t get over. Something that he knew Opal had caught onto, but no one else had the gull to point out. There was something about being touched that could shift Bede from a sly, sultry predator to an anger bound, uncomfortable mess. 

Touching was what people did to _hurt you._ Touching meant a closed door at the back of the Orphanage. 

But he was not at the orphanage. And when his clothing peeled off, it was his choice. When someone touched him, it was in his power to break them. 

Reams of white cloth rolled away from him, baring his chest and legs to the light which bounced off the reflective paintings coloring his skin. Glimmering. Sharp. 

A mural of death and pain swirled over the hard plains of his skin: over his shoulders and down his stomach before dipping into the v of his pelvis. 

There was a collective gasp and Bede could practically _feel_ the tendrils of lust crawl over his skin. People _loved_ him for this. 

Even as the mood changed, he could feel people’s arousal. Could feel people watching him as his character killed his lover.

When the blood came, tacky and fake, and the ending was nigh, he could see the eyes in the crowd as they followed the sharp lines of dark red against his white skin. 

Ending lines came, the fictional world on fire as he ruled it. 

The ending...was completed with the accompanying choir belting out “ _Angels from on High”_ as him and his colleagues stood and gave the closing bow. 

Bede tried not to look at Gloria, but his eyes strayed and met with hers. There was no lust in them, only a sharp recognition. 

.

…

.

It was an hour when Bede saw Gloria again. 

He had washed away the dripping blood and sweat and redressed in a pink shirt, a shade made him look sickly and gaunt, but it was loose and flowing over his white pants. He felt good like he had just finished a race and won. 

His performance was striking enough that he was sure people _would remember_ what he could look like. 

What he was. 

“Come on boy, we have time to keep.” Opal, the hag she was, hurried him along with her cane into the side restaurant, closed to the public so he could have a moment without _interruption_ and the _threat of hands._

Gloria was there. And now, without the glare of stage lights and the play going on, he could see her fully. 

Dressed in pink, a warm and dusty color. A train skirt, which the short side hit mid-thigh and the long back trailed behind her. The a-line cut made her look _delicious._ But he would never say so. 

And that fucking green beret was peeking out from her bag. 

A cold, withered hand brushed _closely_ as Opal came up beside him. “Come on, now, I told Gloria we wouldn’t keep her forever.”

Ah, so that’s what this was. 

It had been four years since they interacted, for three of them she had stayed for away. He knew he was the reason, and that fact pulled the corner of his lip skyward. The smirk had grown up with him. Bloody stupid girl. 

“Be nice, Bedey.” Opal ground out next to him, her vulture-like face mean and pinched. “I don’t want you _scaring her away.”_

“I wouldn’t dream of it.”

Opal shuffled ahead of him, coming up to Gloria and grappling her into a grandmotherly bearhug. Bede was struck with an uncomfortable feeling. As if through the airwaves themselves _he_ could feel the hand on his body. 

Stiffly, he sat. Face cold. Eyes sharp. His hair, now long for the role he had been playing, was still damp and hung over his eyes as he watched Opal and Gloria trade formalities. 

He wondered if she was still an ugly crier. 

Both women, and yes, he could now see Gloria was a _woman_ despite that fucking smile of hers, sat down in unison. She still hadn’t looked at him, but he was staring. 

Not that he cared. He was above her. He’d become stronger. His hands were big enough to wrap around that neck of her and _break it._

But she didn’t even look at him…

“Ah, my dear, they want you to go _there_?”

Wait. What was going on? Bede must have missed something-

“Yeah. With the growing population and more trainers coming around to catch sight of the Dynamax pokemon, they want me to go ‘ _on a friendly expedition’_ .” Gloria paused to take a sip of her water, freshly placed in front of her by a waiter. “Says I need to ‘ _map it out_ ’.”

“Hm, that’s what I was afraid of,” Opal said, her hands folding over one another. “I’m old enough to have seen this happen before. That’s actually why I invited you today.”

Bede didn’t know whether to be angry that Gloria hadn’t come here on her own, or pleased that when he _was a twelve-year-old_ he had scared off the Galar Champion. 

“I want you to take Bede with you.” Opal’s cane struck him on the shoulder, but he was unresponsive to that. Frozen for a split second. 

“Excuse me?” 

“I’m kicking your ass out of Ballonlea, Bedey-boy.” Opal said, giving him a grandmotherly smile. “Just for a bit. You haven’t left this place for nearly five years. Can’t waste your youth being a layabout.”

Bede straightened in his chair, stiff as he stared unblinkingly at Opal, who matched his gaze with that buzzard-smile of hers. For a solid moment, he felt like had had when he was eleven and Rose had stripped him of his Championship sponsor. Abandoned again. 

_Unwanted._

“I, uh, I-” Gloria stumbled and immediately Bede knew she didn’t want him around. He HAD affected her. Well, that certainly changed things. 

She had ruined everything for him.

“I think this is perfect,” Bede said pleasantly, his lips softened but his eyes stayed rather sharp as he looked right at Gloria. Changing his tune sharply. “Something new. An... _experience._ ”

“Good, good.” Opal cut in, unaware of the strange tension now crackling the spaced between Bede and Gloria. “I know with Hop training for Professorship and Leon in that cursed region Jonto, it’s been rather lonely for your dear. And with traveling like you are, you can’t go alone.”

Gloria was nervous. Her lips, though smiling, didn’t look the same. Her teeth weren’t on full display and the dimples were too shallow. 

He was not her friend. She knew that. Opal was trying something old women tended to do, and he would come _back_ fulfilled. At peace. 

The rest of the night pittered on. Gloria shared small details of what was being planned for the new land and Bede was given a list- A _long list-_ on what to bring. There were no towns to stop by up there and he would need to... _camp._

New experiences in _deed_.

The night closed with a verbal agreement, one that bound Bede to Gloria in the coming month for a lovely, long _expedition._ The nervousness was radiating from the champion like a brisk wave of water. 

“Goodnight Opal. Goodnight Bede.”

Ah, somethings never changed. Those syllables still hissing like a song on her tongue. 

“Goodnight _Champion._ ” Gloria flinched but said nothing as she pulled out that beret and placed it onto her head. Opal waved to them both, before turning and shuffling away. 

Bede didn’t dawdle as he shifted back, standing straight as a rod before waltzing away, feeling her eyes on his back as he moved. He could feel her struggle, but he didn’t care beyond the fact that he _made her uncomfortable._ He loved that. He...loved that. 

But he hated her. 

Storming into his apartment, the place clean to the point he could smell the bleach used to scrub the floors, he stood for a moment. His mouth quirked and a dangerous look erupted in his violent violet eyes. 

He hadn’t noticed until now, but he was mouthing the lyrics to ‘ _Angels from on High’_ the ending song engrained from _hours_ of rehearsal.

“Gloo-oooo-oooo--ooooriaaa! En excelses deo~”


	2. No, the Hair Will Remain Long and Untamed

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A fan of Bede asks for an autograph.

This may have been a mistake. 

That wasn’t the first time he thought it and it wouldn’t be the last time he thought it. But here, as he was facing Opal and her hairdresser, he was like a trapped Poochyena faced with getting neutered. 

They wanted to cut his hair. At 5 am. 

And Bede wanted to keep it long. 

It had been years since he was trapped within the walls of an orphanage. Years since the threat of head lice and dandruff haunted him. There was no surly matron with a wooloo clipper scaring him down, forcing the older kids to _touch him_ to _pin him down_ as she cut all of his hair off. 

A bald four-year-old albino. 

The pain had been immense, his head cut and nicked before being completely scorched raw by the sun when he went outside. A terrible memory. A horrible instance.

He had refused to let anyone cut his hair since. If push came to shove, Bede would trim it himself. 

But now, after playing the part of that Demon King- so fanciful, powerful, and sexy- he found he was attached to the look. Sure, it made him more feminine- the slimness of his body and the sleekness of his muscles, but he found that many women slathered him in attention. 

Attention beyond that red felt rope. 

But that was just it. He was done playing the part and now he was to enter an _unmapped_ section of wilderness with only one companion. There would be no well-stocked vanity desk, a shower, or room in his pack for all of his products. 

Well, so be it. Untamed hair would befit him in his role. 

“I said ‘No’.” His voice was sharp. It was the third time he has said it and meant it. 

Opal twisted her cane between her hands, a pinched look drawing all of her wrinkles in tightly against her eyes and mouth. There was a glower of a grandmother who’d been smarted off to too many times. 

“Fine then! So be it.” She muttered, a rueful look crossing her vision as the barber backed away. “When you come home with a fully matted head, don’t _even think_ of complaining _once.”I_

Bede gave his mentor a look. She was dressed in her old Gym Leader attire, the slopes of her dress faded from their time sitting in the display case in the Ballonlea gym. Like a faded memory still breathing. 

“Tch- It’s not like I haven’t done it before.” While it technically was true- he had gone camping before, he had only done it for… _a single night_. This would be, at least, a month of travel. 

Another reason to regret his choices. 

Opal appraised him sharply, her mouth pursed and her eyes tired. He knew that she knew him better than he’d ever give her credit for. 

But she relented. Twisting her hand in a dismissing fashion as she turned and walked back to her chair next to the make-up station. Somewhere, a radio played ‘ _I Think I’m Going to Kill Myself’_ in a rusty jitter. 

_What a scandal if I died._

“I didn’t mean to offer you up like that.” She muttered, her legs crossing. 

_-gonna kill myself._

There was a pointed look Opal gave him as if willing him to talk. 

_Get a little headline news._

She opened her mouth, then closed it- her fingers steepled before her. Bede gave her a smirk. 

_I'd like to see what the papers say_

“I’ll be fine, grandma.” He said it jovially. The finesse of his accent chipper as he pulled on his jacket and made his way to the door. He was packed and ready to go- no one could stop him now. 

Perhaps, he mused as the door slammed behind him, she wasn’t even worried about him. More worried about Gloria, but unwilling to acknowledge she hadn’t thought of his feelings when she offered him up on _silver fucking platter._

But, despite his regret. And Opal’s regret. He was going.

And he would terrorize Gloria every day. Drag her down with him in the obvious spiral he’d been sent on since birth. 

Destroy her from the inside out. 

As Bede stepped into the street, the damp coolness of Ballonlea petaling his body, he felt some layer of excitement. Something other than the deathly stagnation that had been plaguing him every time a play ended. 

Something to respark him. 

He was going to suck the life out of her like some ancient vampire, grind her bones to dust and swallow her spirit. 

It was a short walk to his apartment. The locked door was covered in love letters; doodled hearts overlapping each other into an oblivion of color. He wouldn’t get his deposit back. 

His apartment was dreary. Unclean. There were dishes in the sink and the floor had a layer of dirt. Something smelled in his garbage bin. 

Someone could look at it and say he lived in filth. He would say… organized chaos. It was unclean- cluttered. He never threw things away that he ‘might need later’.

Sure, his usual scrubbing and bleach had kept it sanitized. but his usual cleaning habits had been thrown to the proverbial Growlithe. An internalized act of self-sabotage he allowed himself to fall into. 

Not when he had _nothing_ but the clothing on his back for years and years.

He just couldn’t do it. 

Perhaps, if the right person came around, they would tell him that he needed therapy. And Bede did need therapy- not that it had ever crossed his mind before. In his own mind, he was normal. Everyone else was the freak. 

Gloria was the freak. 

With her smiles and her cheer. Sportsmanship that still left him _lost._

Bede settled on the edge of his bed, pulling his suitcase onto his lap to recheck all of his belongings. Double-check to make sure his comb was packed in between layers of pinks and purples. 

Against his hip, Hatterene shook in her ball. Reminding him of her presence for the fourth time that day. 

Lately, he’d been such a robot. Emotionless, cold. A day was something _to get through_. Now, upon the reintroduction of his greatest rival and enemy, he’d been… feeling. And Hatterene had keenly felt it. 

Did she hate it? 

She was...a vindictive creature. Deadly. Perhaps she felt the same elation he felt. The same frothing-at-the-mouth hunger for retribution he did. 

The same hate? 

How could Hatterene not hate Gloria? Her pokemon? 

Bede patted the Pokeballs at his hip, cooing something as he hefted his case onto his shoulders. Everything he’d need for the next weeks. Everything but the kitchen knives. 

The walkout of his apartment held no sentiment. Door locked, stove off, and he was gone. Down the stairs and outside as the streets began to mull with a few people. Foreigners easily picked out and avoided-

Ever the narcissist he was _sure_ they were hunting the area with hungry eyes. 

Then he caught sight of it- an ugly green beret.

Of course. 

Gloria looked out of place. Nervous as she stood, arms crossed, as she looked at the ground. She wasn’t weaning anything exceptionally pretty today; a sweater and loose-fitting pants _he did not like._

She had such pretty legs. 

Bede frowned at her as he approached her quickly, dodging the bustle of a man passing _far to close_. His shoulders tense and his skin sparking was itch as he finally stepped in front of her. Forcing a smirk as he looked down at her. 

“Isn’t the beret a little old?”

Gloria didn’t jump, just simply passed her eyes up to meet his own, hard and honey brown. Frozen as if she wanted to give the perception that he wasn’t on her good side. There was a glare building somewhere as if she knew he was only coming to hurt her. 

“Why are you German?” 

Huh. 

That wasn’t what he- No. No that was not what he was expecting. 

Pushing a strand of his curly white hair out of his glowering eyes, he let his face settled into a frown. 

“Why are you Scottish?” 

They stared at each other. The world frozen between them. 

“Pfft- hahaha! You were FAKING an accent!” It was a snap change, a little smile slicking up her features as if she had any right to smile. Her eyes cast like a Weavile as she shouldered her own bag, waking her Cinderace who’d been… out of his Pokeball and leaning against the table. Sleeping like a belligerent student. 

Dominik. 

He eyed him, not trusting. Bede eyed him back. Anger simmering below the surface- she had no right to point out… anything! She was just a fucking hillbilly Scott from the boonies. If he wanted to act British, he had every right to. If he wanted to talk without _forcing his voice_ to arch in his throat then that was his choice. 

Dominik glared. Bede nearly snarled back. 

“Come on boys!” 

Gloria, in all of her awfulness, was sitting at the taxi station. Two taxis- thankfully- were sitting at the ready, their drivers looking worse for wear as dark circles crouched under their eyes. The Corviknights at least looked more... present. Chattering between themselves. 

Something moved next to his arm. 

An almost _brush_ of fingers against his wrist. 

_Don’t react- Oh don’t react!_

Bede stiffly stepped sideways, turning to look at a woman who had snuck upon him as he glared at the Cinderace. 

She was a willowy red-head. Lips, pale and thin, on an otherwise pretty face. Eyes as blue as the sky. 

Her _freckled paw_ held in the air, preparing to touch him. Didn’t they know _not to fucking touch him_?

“Excuse me?” Germanic tones forced his voice into crushing gravel. Clearly uninterested in talking, and very clearly uncomfortable. 

The woman didn’t seem to notice. No, she didn’t.

Instead, a smile flicked across her face; showing her immaculate teeth, straight and perfectly white. It didn’t have the _charm_ that Gloria’s smile had, didn’t have the _lines_ that imprinted her cheeks. No dimples. 

“Bede!” She greeted him as a friend. Like he _knew her._

Then, within those freckled claws of her's, she held out a pen, purple and metallic, and a rather striking photo of himself. 

It was a snapshot from a few days ago, during his performance. He was wearing nothing but a silk robe bottom, the frayed edges dancing along the floor. His shirt was open and his lips were close to the blood-stained neckline of the actress he had worked with.

Her head, unsurprisingly, was cropped off. 

Fans, Bede surmised, were fucking weird. Strange.

There was a blatant double standard with his _attracted crowd._ Women in particular as if he had ‘Objectify me’ printed over his tits and ass. 

Bede carefully snatched the edges of the picture and the pen, settling the fold of the picture into his hand so he could quickly scrawl his name in iridescent liquid ink. It was quick, not personalized notes, as she bounced on her heels in front of him. Her excitement grated on his impatience. 

“Come _on_ Bede!” 

There was a pause as he finished the sliding line of his ‘e’, careening off the paper in a fanciful stroke. He didn’t think he would ever be so grateful to hear the beckoning as someone like Gloria, but here; yes. It gave him the excuse to quickly hand back the pictures and dodge away from the arms that struck out to _hug him._

Had it been any other time, Bede would have _gladly_ made her cry again. Eat her _fucking_ soul for commanding him, _especially_ in public. 

But as he stepped into his own taxi and Cinderace stepped into her’s, he couldn’t help but feel thankful he wasn’t shamed by lashing out at a _fan_ in _public._ Not after the last time. Not after the publicity clean up. 

The taxi took off and a cold stream of air brushed past his ears. Looking at Gloria, she was faced away from him- her eyes cast toward the mountains in the distance. The sun lit her face up beautifully, her warmer skin catching the light while he felt himself reflectively shy away from it. His skin and eyes already tender from the first speckle of natural sunlight that hadn't hit him in years. 

He’d forgotten sunscreen. 

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No, this isn't a reference to the expansion to Sword and Shield. I'm going to just mcfuck around with world-building, aight?
> 
> Eventually, I will draw this Bede. I keep picturing Griffith from Berserk, and I'm not sure I'm vibing with it. No. Probably not.

**Author's Note:**

> Just something that came to me while I was writing A Wending Heart. I recently finished the initial game as well and found that they left Bede on too much of a cliffhanger. 
> 
> Watch out, this is most likely going to get dark before it gets better.


End file.
